RESEARCH

ADAPTED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY QUARTERLY, 2007, 24, 305-316 

© 2007 Human Kinetics, Inc.

A Test of Self-Determination Theory

With Wheelchair Basketball Players
With and Without Disability
Stéphane Perreault
University of Québec at Trois-Rivières

Robert J. Vallerand
University of Québec at Montréal

Guided by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the present study examined the sport
motivation and coping skills of male and female wheelchair basketball players with
and without disability (N = 72). In line with SDT, results showed that intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation as well as amotivation was found to be present in this sample
of wheelchair basketball players. Results also demonstrated that the participants
surveyed in the present study scored higher on self-determined types of motivation
than non self-determined types of motivation, thus replicating past research with
athletes without disability. Furthermore, wheelchair basketball players with and
without disability did not differ significantly with respect to sport motivation and
coping skills, suggesting that they are more alike than dissimilar. Finally, results
revealed that self-determined motivation is associated with enhanced psychologi-
cal functioning.

Much sport psychology research for individuals with a disability over the past
twenty years has examined participation motives in adapted sport. Dickinson and
Perkins (1985) were the first, to our knowledge, to demonstrate that motivation
to continue in sports for active individuals in adapted sport comes predominantly
from sources inherent in the activity (i.e., intrinsic motivation). A few years later,
a similar result was found by Brasile (1988) in that he established that the pleasure
of participation in and of itself (i.e., task-oriented incentives) is a key variable when
understanding why wheelchair basketball players take part in their sport. Brasile and
Hedrick (1991) replicated and extended this finding. They showed that task-related
incentives are most important for both young and old wheelchair basketball players
alike when taking part in adapted sport. Other researchers have also identified fun
or enjoyment as an important motivating factor for becoming involved or practicing
an adapted sport (Brasile, Kleiber, & Harnisch, 1991; Fung, 1992a; Kirkby, 1995).

Stéphane Perreault is with the Department of Social Communication and Letters at the University of
Québec at Trois-Rivères. E-mail: stephane.perreault@uqtr.ca. Robert J. Vallerand is with the Depart-
ment of Psychology at the University of Québec at Montréal.

    305
306   Perreault and Vallerand

Although internal reasons, task-incentives, or intrinsic motivation are often invoked

by athletes with a disability to explain their participation, this does not mean that
external reasons, ego-incentives, or extrinsic motivation are not important when
trying to understand why such individuals play or compete in adapted sport. Quite
to the contrary, individuals who participate in adapted sport also identify extrinsic
factors as an important variable to consider when explaining their participation in
their respective sport.
Despite the fact that two types of motivation (intrinsic vs. extrinsic) seem
to be implicated in explaining participation in adapted sports, no research to our
knowledge has attempted to examine both of these constructs using a theory-driven
approach (Crocker, 1993). That is not to say that theory-driven research has not been
performed when studying the motivation of individuals who participate in adapted
sport. For example, Brasile’s (1988) research relied on personal investment theory
(Maehr & Braskamp, 1986); however, if sport participation motivation is a multidi-
mensional phenomenon, as is suggested by Brasile and Hedrick (1991), researchers
need to utilize a theory of motivation that takes this into account. Furthermore, if
researchers are to study participation motives in adapted sport, they need, according
to Crocker (1993), a theory which also clearly defines the constructs to be studied
and the relationships between them. One approach that meets this requirement is
Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991).
SDT suggests that to fully understand participation in adapted sport, three
motivational constructs need to be considered: (a) Intrinsic Motivation (IM), (b)
Extrinsic Motivation (EM), and (c) amotivation. IM refers to the fact of doing an
activity for itself and the pleasure and satisfaction derived from participation (e.g.,
Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985). As past research highlighted earlier, playing for
fun or enjoyment in adapted sport is an example of IM. Moreover, a tripartite tax-
onomy of intrinsic motivation has been postulated by Vallerand and his colleagues
(1989, 1992, 1993). These three types are IM to know (i.e., pleasure in learning new
things in adapted sport), to accomplish (i.e., pleasure in trying to surpass oneself in
adapted sport), and to experience stimulation (i.e., engaging in a particular adapted
sport because of the stimulating sensations associated with it).
The second motivational construct that needs to be investigated if researchers
are to better understand why individuals with a disability participate in adapted
sport is EM. Different types of EM exist and these differ in their degree of self-
determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991). At the lowest level of self-determina-
tion, one can find external regulation. In this particular case, behavior is regulated
through external means such as rewards and constraints. For instance, a wheelchair
basketball player might say, “I play basketball because I want to please my parents.”
Introjected regulation comes next and is the second type of EM. However, this
type of motivation, while internal to the person, is not truly self-determined since
it is limited to the internalization of past external contingencies. Thus, a statement
such as “I play wheelchair basketball because I would feel guilty if I didn’t” is
indicative of this particular type of motivation. When participation in adapted sport
becomes valued, judged important, and perceived as chosen for the individual,
sport behavior is deemed to be regulated by identification. If this were the case,
our fictitious wheelchair basketball player, when asked why he plays wheelchair
basketball, would probably say, “I choose to play wheelchair basketball because
this activity is important for me.” The last type and most self-determined EM is
 Motivation and Coping Skills    307

integrated regulation. In this particular situation, taking part in adapted sport is

a harmonious part of the self. The choices athletes make are coherent with other
aspect of their self-concept. Hearing our wheelchair athlete tell his friends, “I am
not going out tonight because we have a big game tomorrow,” would reflect this
type of EM.1
The third type of motivational construct that needs to be examined to fully
understand adapted sport participation is amotivation. Amotivated individuals who
participate in adapted sport feel incompetent, have expectancies of uncontrollability,
and ask themselves why they engage in their respective sport. Thus, a Paralympic
track and field athlete who is on the brink of burnout can be seen as experiencing
a great deal of amotivation.
Much research supports the existence of these three types of motivational
constructs in sport with athletes without disability (for reviews, see Vallerand,
1997; Vallerand & Fortier, 1998; Vallerand & Rousseau, 2001). Moreover, self-
determined types of motivation (IM and identified regulation) are more reflective of
the participation of athletes without disability in their sport than non self-determined
motivation (introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation). Finally,
women take part in sport for more self-determined reasons than do men, a result
corroborated by Fung (1992a) with wheelchair athletes and explained by the idea
that males are more oriented toward achievement than are females when placed
in competitive situations. Still, only one study, to our knowledge, has examined
and confirmed that self-determination theory’s conceptualization of motivation is
useful when trying to understand why intellectually challenged individuals take
part in physical education classes (i.e., the Pictorial Motivation Scale cited in 1998
by Vallerand and Fortier). It thus seems that more research is needed to understand
how SDT applies to other populations who practice adapted sport. More precisely,
from a descriptive point of view, research is needed to verify if IM, EM, and amo-
tivation are reflective of adapted sport participation. Furthermore, research is also
needed to examine if the order of the various types of motivation proposed by SDT
is similar to the one found for athletes without disability.
Comparing athletes with and without disability is a common practice within
sport psychology research for individuals with a disability. Such a comparison is
often justified by the idea that athletes with a disability differ from athletes without
disability in that they “have had a major life trauma, loss, or chronic situation to
which they have had to adjust” (Asken & Goodling, 1986, p. 315). Implicitly, such
a statement suggests that wheelchair athletes may have acquired coping skills via
years of therapy and, consequently, have superior psychological skills and motiva-
tion as compared to athletes without disability because these transferred into the
sport environment (Cox & Davis, 1992). Performing such a comparison, however,
is not always an easy task due to the difficulty of finding a comparable group of ath-
letes without disability. For instance, from a strict methodological point of view, is
playing wheelchair basketball the same as playing able-bodied basketball? Although
this point is debatable, nearly one-third of the wheelchair basketball players in
Canada do not have a disability (Brasile, 1992). These players are often categorized
as “AB” (able-bodied) and compete freely against wheelchair players with a dis-
ability. This particular situation is interesting because one can compare wheelchair
basketball players with and without disability within the same sport thus alleviating
this problem. It is important to acknowledge that Kirkby (1995) performed such a
308   Perreault and Vallerand

comparison and found that both wheelchair athletes with and without disability listed
enjoyment or having fun as the most important reward they get from playing wheel-
chair netball. Despite providing tentative information about IM, this study remains
descriptive and atheoretical. Clearly, research is needed to compare both these
groups using a measure of motivation that has a sound theoretical foundation.
It is important to underscore that SDT does not only specify how motivation
is structured, it also describes how sport motivation should function in adapted
sport. One such hypothesis is that self-determined motivation is believed to be
associated with enhanced psychological functioning (Deci, 1980). More precisely,
as one progresses from amotivation to IM, the consequences of motivation should
become increasingly positive. Despite the fact that Poulin and Vallerand (1994, cited
in Vallerand & Fortier, 1998) confirmed that interest, concentration, and positive
emotions experienced during physical education classes are positively correlated
with the most self-determined forms of motivation (IM and identified regulation)
but negatively with amotivation (the least self-determined form of motivation) for
intellectually challenged individuals, it seems, once again, that more research is
needed to test this idea with other groups who compete in adapted sports.
In order to test this particular prediction of SDT, we chose to look at the
relationship between the various forms of motivation proposed by SDT and coping
skills in sport. While Cox and Davis (1992) and Pensgaard, Roberts, and Ursin (1999)
have investigated the coping skills of adapted sport participants, the relationship
between coping skills and motivation has received little attention by adapted
sport researchers. As suggested by Vallerand and Fortier (1998), athletes who are
intrinsically motivated should spend more time practicing their skills. Furthermore,
by focusing on the intrinsic element of sport, these athletes should experience less
anxiety thereby helping them develop better coping skills. Furthermore, according
to Amiot, Gaudreau, and Blanchard (2004), self-determined forms of motivation
should also promote a more active engagement of the self when one is faced with a
stressful situation thus leading to more adaptive coping; however, the reverse should
be true for non self-determined motivations. Recent research by Amiot et al. (2004)
with athletes without disability suggests that this reasoning is sound in that self-
determined types of motivation have been shown to predict adaptive coping (i.e.,
task-oriented) strategies while non self-determined types of motivation have been
found to predict maladaptive coping (i.e., disengagement-oriented) strategies in sport.
In summary, guided by SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991), the present study
examined the sport motivation and coping skills of female and male wheelchair
basketball players with and without disability (N = 72). It was hypothesized that
no differences would be observed as a function of disability. However, in line with
past research (Fung, 1992a; Vallerand & Bissonnette, 1992; Vallerand, Fortier, &
Guay, 1997) female wheelchair basketball players were expected to score higher on
self-determined forms of motivation than male wheelchair basketball players. The
hypothesis that self-determined motivation is associated with enhanced psychologi-
cal functioning was also put to the test. More precisely, it was predicted, based on
SDT, that the self-determined forms of motivations would be positively associated
with coping skills in sport while non self-determined forms of motivations (espe-
cially amotivation) would be negatively associated with coping skills in sport.
 Motivation and Coping Skills    309

Method
Participants
Participants were 72 (41 men and 31 women) wheelchair basketball players. The
mean age for these participants was 30.1 years (SD = 8.3). The average playing
experience for this sample was 7.7 years (SD = 5.6). Finally, participants reported
being categorized in the following classes: class 1 (n = 11), class 1.5 (n = 1), class
2 (n = 11), class 2.5 (n = 7), class 3 (n = 4), class 3.5 (n = 4), class 4 (n = 2), class
4.5 (n = 5), able-bodied (i.e., individuals without disability, n = 24), and two partici-
pants failed to report their class. Lower class wheelchair basketball players are more
limited in their functional skills (generally speaking thoracic level 7 paraplegics and
above) while athletes assigned higher classes have few, if any, limitations.

Questionnaire
For the purposes of this study, wheelchair basketball players were asked to com-
plete a short questionnaire that contained a multidimensional measure of sport
motivation as well as a measure of coping skills in sport. The protocol used in the
present study received institutional approval and informed consent was obtained
from each participant.
Motivation in Wheelchair Basketball. The Sport Motivation Scale (SMS; Pelletier
et al., 1995) was utilized to assess motivation in wheelchair basketball. A small
modification was made to the instructions found at the beginning of this scale. Rather
than asking participants “Why do you practice your sport?” the instructions asked
them explicitly “Why to you practice wheelchair basketball?” thus avoiding any
potential confusion. Based on self-determination theory, this particular measure of
motivation in sport assesses IM to know, IM to achieve something, IM to experience
stimulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, and
amotivation and each of the subscales is scored on a 7-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 (does not correspond at all) to 7 (corresponds exactly).
Coping Skills in Sport. The Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (ACSI-28; Smith,
Schutz, Smoll, & Ptacek, 1995) was used to measure the coping skills in sport of
wheelchair basketball players. This particular measure of coping is composed of
the following subscales: coping with adversity (i.e., “I maintain emotional control
no matter how things are going for me”), peaking under pressure (i.e., “To me,
pressure situations are challenges that I welcome”), goal setting/ mental preparation
(i.e., “On a daily basis, I set very specific goals for myself that guide what I do”),
concentration (i.e., “It is easy for me to direct my attention and focus my atten-
tion on a single object or person”), freedom from worry (i.e., “While competing,
I worry about mistakes or failing to come through”), confidence and achievement
motivation (i.e., “I feel confident that I will play well”), and coachability (i.e., “If
a coach criticizes or yells at me, I correct the mistake without getting upset about
it”). All of the subscales of the ACSI-28 were assessed on a 7-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (almost never) to 7 (almost always).
310   Perreault and Vallerand

Procedure
Participants were recruited by contacting their team manager or coach prior to
one of two wheelchair basketball tournaments (i.e., Le Défi Sportif and Women’s
Canadian Wheelchair Basketball Finals). At that time, the team manager or coach
was asked to solicit the participation of his or her players for the present study.
They were also instructed to tell their athletes that participation was voluntary
and that all the information reported in their questionnaire was confidential. It is
important to note that these two points were reinforced in the instructions found
at the beginning of the questionnaire. After meeting with prospective participants,
managers or coaches contacted the researchers and informed them of the number
of players who were interested in taking part in the study. Once this number was
established, questionnaires were sent to team managers or coaches one week prior
to the tournament. The wheelchair basketball players then completed the question-
naire individually and these were returned to the researchers when the various
teams arrived at the tournament site. To indicate informed consent, participants
signed their copy of their questionnaire. Finally, to help bolster participation in the
present study, a lottery draw was also held. When completing the questionnaire,
participants were asked to indicate their name on a detachable coupon (this coupon
was removed as soon as the questionnaires were returned to the tournament site to
ensure that participants remain anonymous). Coupons were then placed in a bin
and three cash prizes (i.e., $75, $50, $25) were drawn. Winners of the lottery draw
were then located and given their prize.

Results and Discussion

Reliability for the SMS and the ACSI-28
As can be seen in Table 1, the internal consistencies for the subscales of the SMS
range from .65 to .86 for both participants with and without disability. Considering
that these subscales are composed of 4 items, they appear to demonstrate an
acceptable level of internal consistency. Furthermore, these values are similar to
the ones found with athletes who do not have a disability (Brière, Vallerand, Blais,
& Pelletier, 1995; Pelletier et al., 1995). As for the ACSI-28, alphas range from
.53 to .88. Based on these results, it is important to be cognizant that the internal
consistencies for the coachability and concentration subscales seem to be low even
though the subscale are composed of only four items. These two subscales in the
present study should therefore be interpreted with caution. Although we cannot
speculate why the internal consistency of the concentration subscale is low (it was
also low in Smith’s et al., 1995 study), it is conceivable that the lack of internal
consistency for the coachability subscale is because some wheelchair basketball
teams who attended the tournament did not have a coach. Without such a referent,
it may have been difficult to answer the particular items of this subscale for some
wheelchair basketball players. Despite these two results overall, the majority of
subscales of the ACSI-28 have an adequate level of internal consistency. Future
research will need to replicate these findings, but as a whole, the results were
encouraging enough to proceed with testing the two postulates of self-determination
theory of interest for the present study.
 Motivation and Coping Skills    311

Table 1 Alpha Coefficients, Means, and Standard Deviations

for Sport Motivation and Coping Skills for Both Participants
With and Without Disability
Alpha coefficient Mean S.D.
Types of Motivation
IM to experience stimulation .85 4.6 1.4
IM to accomplish something .84 4.6 1.3
IM to know .86 4.2 1.4
Identified regulation .74 3.8 1.3
Introjected regulation .65 2.4 1.2
External regulation .74 2.6 1.2
Amotivation .66 1.7 0.9
Coping skills
Coping with adversity .81 4.6 1.1
Peaking under pressure .88 4.8 1.2
Goal setting/ mental
  preparation .72 3.7 1.3
Concentration .53 4.8 0.8
Freedom from worry * .80 4.8 1.1
Confidence and achievement motivation .71 4.9 1.0
Coachability .56 5.4 0.9
Note. *The higher the score, the less a wheelchair basketball player is considered free from worry. All
variables found in this table were assessed using a 7-point Likert-type scale.

Testing for Differences Between Types of Wheelchair

Basketball Players
Means and standard deviations of the different types of motivation and coping skills
for the wheelchair basketball players surveyed in the present study are reported in
Table 1.
To determine if differences existed between these two groups on the different
types of motivation, a Type (wheelchair basketball player with vs. without disability)
× Gender × Scale analysis of variance with repeated measures on the scale factor
was conducted. The main effects for Type, F(1, 66) = .29, p > .05, partial eta-squared
= .00) and Gender, F(1, 66) = .61, p > .05, partial eta-squared = .01 as well as the
Type by Gender interaction, F(1, 66) = .06, p > .05, partial eta-squared = .00, were
not significant. The Type × Scale interaction, F(6, 396) = .69, p > .05, partial eta-
squared = .01 and the second-order interaction Type × Gender × Scale, F(6, 396)
= .67, p > .05, partial eta-squared = .11 were also found to be not significant.
This analysis did show the presence of a significant main effect for Scale:
F(6, 396) = 71.65, p < .0001, partial eta-squared = .52. Most of the subscales
scales differed from each other with exception of the following two pairings: IM
to achieve—IM to experience stimulation and Introjection—External Regulation.
Furthermore, the wheelchair athletes surveyed in the present study scored higher on
self-determined types of motivation than on non self-determined motivation. More
312   Perreault and Vallerand

precisely, the different types of motivation reflective of their wheelchair basketball

participation were, in decreasing order, the following: (a) IM to experience stimula-
tion, (b) IM to accomplish, (c) IM to know, (d) identified regulation, (e) external
regulation, (f) introjected regulation, and (g) amotivation. Overall, these results are
almost identical to those presented by Pelletier et al. (1995), suggesting that athletes
with and without disability are more alike than dissimilar. Finally, a significant
Gender × Scale interaction, F(6, 396) = 2.80, p < .05, partial eta-squared = .04
was also uncovered. Simple main effects analyses revealed that female wheelchair
basketball players scored higher than male wheelchair basketball players on IM to
experience stimulation (d = 0.55) but scored lower on introjection (d = 0.65). Once
again, these findings are similar to past research (Brière et al., 1995; Pelletier et al.,
1995) in that women seem to be more self-determined than men in sport.
A Type (wheelchair basketball player with vs. without disability) × Gender
multivariate analysis variance was also conducted on the subscales of the ACSI-28.
Both multivariate and separate univariate tests for the main effects for Type, F(7,
59) = .50, p > .05, multivariate effect size = .06 and Gender, F(7, 59) = .83, p >.05,
multivariate effect size = .09 as well as the Type × Gender interaction, F(7, 59)
= .52, p >.05, multivariate effect size    = .06 failed to reveal significant differences
on all of the subscales found in the ACSI-28. These results are almost identical to
those of Pensgaard et al. (1999) and Cox and Davis (1992). Although these authors
used a different measure of coping skills, these results lend support, once again, to
the idea that athletes with disabilities share more similarities than differences with
athletes without disabilities.

Canonical Correlation Between the SMS and the ACSI-28

A canonical correlation analysis was conducted in order to examine the relationship
between the different types of motivation measured by the SMS and the various
coping skills indexed by the ACSI-28 (see Table 2). Results from this particular
analysis indicated that two functions were significant: Wilks’s lambda = .15, F(49,
293) = 2.68; p < .0001, multivariate effect size = .24; canonical correlations were
.76 for function 1 and .65 for function 2. To interpret the two functions, canonical
loadings of .30 were considered to be significant (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). As
can be seen in Table 2, the different coping skills with the exception of freedom
from worry are associated with all of the different types of motivation. Moreover,
the highest canonical loadings found in the first function confirm the hypothesis
that the more self-determined forms of motivation should be positively associated
while the non self-determined forms (especially amotivation) should be negatively
associated with coping skills. More precisely, coping with adversity, peaking under
pressure, concentration and confidence, setting goals for oneself, as well as the
belief that one is coachable are positively associated with self-determined forms
of motivation (i.e., three forms of IM as well identified regulation) and negatively
with amotivation. In short, this particular set of results indicates that the more self-
determined a wheelchair basketball player is (i.e., playing for fun and/or by choice),
the more this player reports having adaptive coping skills in sport.
 Motivation and Coping Skills    313

Table 2  Canonical Loadings for Types of Motivation and Coping

Skills

Function 1 Function 2
Types of motivation
IM to experience stimulation .86 .25
IM to accomplish something .83 .48
IM to know .51 .77
Identified regulation .57 .62
Introjected regulation .38 .17
External regulation .36 .27
Amotivation -.49 .29
Coping skills
Coping with adversity .51 .44
Peaking under pressure .75 -.28
Goal setting/ mental preparation .73 .20
Concentration .68 .17
Freedom from worry * .12 .36
Confidence and achievement motivation .89 .04
Coachability .45 .29
Note. * The lower the score, the more a wheelchair basketball player is considered free from worry.

The results of function 2 show that coping with adversity and lack of freedom
from worry were positively associated with IM to know, IM to accomplish things,
and identified regulation. The canonical loadings on this particular function seem
to confirm, once again, the idea that self-determined motivation is associated with
enhanced psychological functioning (Deci, 1980); however, it is surprising that lack
of freedom from worry is positively associated with some forms of self-determined
motivations. By focusing on the intrinsic element (i.e., task-related component) of
sport, wheelchair athletes should be free of worry, thereby helping them develop
better coping skills. One potential explanation for this particular result is the idea
that accomplishing or learning things in sports is a double-edged sword. On the
one hand, accomplish or learning things in sport can be fun yet doing so involves
a certain amount of ego-involvement (i.e., “Will I do well or am I doing well?”).
In short, competing in wheelchair basketball may be fun and/or volitional, but
there might still be a certain cost to doing so. Nevertheless, dealing with such ego-
involvement is essential and because a positive loading was found for coping with
adversity, it seems to suggest that this particular coping skill serves as a buffer for
ego-involvement in sport. Future research will need to examine this possibility, but
overall the present results generally confirm the idea that self-determined motiva-
tion is associated with enhanced psychological functioning (Deci, 1980; Vallerand
& Fortier, 1998) and replicate, although with a different measure of coping skills,
existing results with athletes without disability (Amiot et al., 2004).
314   Perreault and Vallerand

Conclusion
There were two main goals to the present study. First, it examined the structure of
motivation as proposed by SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991) with wheelchair basket-
ball players. Results from this study support the validity of SDT conceptualization
of motivation in that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as amotivation was
found to be present in wheelchair basketball players. Furthermore, participants in
the present study scored higher on self-determined types of motivation than non
self-determined motivation, replicating past results found with athletes without
disability (Brière et al., 1995; Pelletier et al., 1995). Results also indicate that
wheelchair basketball players with a disability seem to be quite similar to wheel-
chair basketball players without disability, at least with respect to motivation and
coping skills. This particular result is interesting because this is the first study, to
our knowledge, that has attempted to compare wheelchair basketball players with
and without disability within the same sport on a measure of coping skills in sport
as well as a theoretically grounded measure of motivation. The second goal of this
study was to test the hypothesis that self-determination is associated with enhanced
psychological functioning. Overall, the present results from this study show that
self-determined forms of motivations (IM and ID) were positively associated with
coping skills in sport while amotivation was negatively associated with coping
skills in sport thus confirming this particular hypothesis of SDT.
The present results are quite encouraging in that they reveal that the same
psychological processes seem to apply to athletes with a physical disability, at
least with respect to motivation and coping processes. These findings thus confirm
the applicability of SDT for athletes with a physical disability. Furthermore, these
results underscore that the SMS and the ACSI-28 are useful tools when looking at
sport motivation and coping skills with athletes with a disability. Additional research
is obviously needed to replicate the present findings with other populations who
take part in adapted sport. From a more theoretical perspective, researchers need to
look at factors that affect the motivation of athletes with a disability. For example,
according to cognitive evaluation theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), a controlling coach
is likely to undermine an athlete’s motivation because this individual affects one of
the three basic needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness) of his players. More
research is also needed to investigate other consequences of motivation (Vallerand,
1997). For example, examining the relationship between commitment to training
(Fung, 1992b) and motivation seems like a potential research avenue. Greater levels
of commitment to training should be associated with more self-determined types
of motivation. Finally, testing the relationship between motivation, coping, and
performance in future research seems warranted. Claiming that motivation leads
to important consequences implies causality and forces us to acknowledge that the
present study is correlational in nature, which is an important limitation due to the
nature of this hypothesis. Future research should use prospective and experimental
designs to test the relationship between these three variables. Such research should
allow us to determine if motivation influences coping skills which, in turn, influ-
ence performance in adapted sports. Such research would allow us to have a better
understanding of the nature of motivational processes and consequences at play
with athletes with a disability.
 Motivation and Coping Skills    315

Note
1.  It is important to note that this type of motivation is presented for conceptual reasons only.
At the time this study was conducted, no scale, to our knowledge, was constructed to measure
such a construct.

Acknowledgment
This study was supported by grants from the Fonds pour la formation de Chercheurs
et l’Aide à la Recherche (FCAR) and the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of
Canada (SSHRC) to both authors.

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